1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates to a method of monitoring a fracture occurrence in a pipe line network for distributing materials from a supply joint to a plurality of consumption joints, and more particularly to a method of estimating a fracture point of a large scale pipe line network in which measuring areas for flow rate and pressure in the network are restricted and, moreover, a fracture point is required to be rapidly detected and repaired.
2. Description of the Prior Art:
In the conventional method which is applied to a single pipe line, the existence of a fracture point in the pipe line is estimated from flow rates and pressures measured at both terminal ends of the pipe line. However, since existing pipe line networks are large in scale and complicated in structure, it is impossible to measure the flow rates and the pressures at all joints of the pipe line networks and it cannot be made to sufficiently reduce the range of a set of suspectedly abnormal joints for increasing speed of estimation. Consequently, it is difficult to apply the conventional method to large scale pipe line networks.